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Research Essay for Eckles Prize for Freshman Research Excellence I first thought of my research topic when several of the girls in my hall decided to watch the movie Brokeback Mountain and were met with a response from fellow residents that was anything but subtle. With reactions of disgust from the boys, condemning the film as “gay porn,” and accusing rebuttals from the girls as they pointed out the boys’ fascination with “Girls Gone Wild,” the exchange begged several questions about our American culture. Why is female homosexuality attractive, while male homosexuality is regarded with disgust by particular audiences? Why is the acceptance of homosexuality limited to overtly sexual encounters, as implied by my peers’ reaction, and discludes the realm of lifetime/serious relationships, as represented in the film? How widespread are these patterns and points of view and what is the media’s role in this? As you will soon see, this was by no means the final direction my project went, but merely a jumping off point for a greater project, which for me was one of the most intellectually stimulating experiences of my academic career. These questions and the ones they inspired opened my eyes not only to a discipline that examined different interpretations of sexuality, identity, and acceptance in ways in which I had never explored, but also a new approach to analyzing the world around me. As described above, my original idea was to explore how the media has shaped the dominant culture’s view of homosexuals through an examination of the film Brokeback Mountain , its subsequent reviews, and the effect it has had on “typical” American perceptions of male and female homosexuality. However, I was biting off more than I could chew. My initial proposal was too broad and attempted to explain too much. I formulated my topic trying to tackle all the issues, but as I began to outline my project, I realized my naïveté in pursuing breadth over depth. I narrowed the scope of my project to an analysis of media professionals’ reactions to the film Brokeback Mountain and how these reviews “frame,” or shape the film’s messages in a particular manner that, perhaps unintentionally, reinforce stereotypes regarding homosexuality. While the entirety of my thesis was not composed at this point in my research, the direction for my project was defined and as I continued to explore the literature in my field, it became more specific. I initially looked for research surrounding the film in the disciplines of Sociology and Communication. I wanted to see what other scholars had observed and discussed in relation to the movie. I began with an exploration of the Article & Databases search engine on the Gelman Library Website and found a variety of relevant databases, including Gender Studies, Sociological Abstracts, and Communication and Mass Media Complete. Through this initial batch of research, I found approximately 30-40 journal articles that could help me. After reading through them, I narrowed them down, keeping only those that had potential, and then went through their bibliographies, making a list of the scholars quoted or referred to most often to research next. I spent hours on the second floor of Eckels going through the periodicals looking up specific articles, and pouring over the journals in which they were contained to look for others relating to the topic. Now that I had examined sources that directly discussed the film, I wanted to explore the theories and methods of analysis that led to such conclusions. When I exhausted that resource, I turned to the stacks where I discovered a variety of books that gave me a better understanding of the perspectives of the fields and their approaches to analyzing the issues the film and its subsequent reviews raised. I explored complex concepts such as queer theory, heteronormativity, sexual identity, , inclusion, paradox of visibility, and framing analysis, among others. In addition to spending my fair share of time on the main floors, I spent several hours in Gelman’s Special Collections Research Center working closely with a particular manuscript unavailable elsewhere. I also used the Consortium Loan Service to borrow books GW did not carry from American and George Mason University, and when no member school carried a book, I used the Interlibrary Loan Service to obtain a specific text. In addition to learning how to use the various resources GW’s Library System offers, I also learned how to evaluate the quality and appropriate usage of sources. Some sources, such as academic journals and books, were appropriate to use to affirm, extend, or enhance my analysis while others, such as the movie reviews, were the objects of my analysis through which I illustrated my thesis. Also, as I mentioned earlier, not all articles or books contained information relevant to my specific topic. Many times I would read an article and get excited about the new concepts or perspective it brought up only to go back later and realize that its ideas, while interesting and inspiring, were not actually within the scope of my paper. I had to learn to say no to certain points for the sake of the flow and coherence of my project. While I did not include all my sources in my final project and some proved to be dead-ends, having such a large research bank enabled me to pick and choose the sources that fit best with what I was trying to achieve and allowed me to learn so much about the areas in which I explored. I tried to utilize as many library resources as possible to gain a comprehensive view of the disciplines in which my project was relevant, and a deep and learned understanding of the issues I was confronting and the potential implications for my project. I wanted to produce a project that would not only command the attention of my peers, but also of the greater intellectual community; a project that would contribute to the conversations of scholars in my field and hopefully, inspire further discussion and action. Throughout my research project, I discovered several things not only about my field but about myself as a researcher. I learned that queer theory (which is the field I believe my project ultimately falls under, although it derives its conclusions from an interdisciplinary approach to analysis) has an almost infinite amount of available resources, contrary to my initial perception. In regards to myself as a researcher, I learned that when I am researching a topic that fascinates me, I completely immerse myself so that I can learn the most I can through the experience. However, I think the most important characteristic I discovered about the research process as a whole is its inspirational power and potential to instigate discussion. For me in particular, this project has opened my eyes to a world of access to every kind, type, or bit of knowledge. Now that I know how to use the tools, I feel that I have the power to contribute to the intellectual community, and with a lot of work and a little luck, the power to inspire and reach the greaterglobal community as well. Framing Homosexuality: Media Influence in Reconciling the film Brokeback Mountain within the limits of a Heteronormative Society Kirsten Ortega The George Washington University Professor Rachel Riedner May 2009 The “cinematic love story of the year” (Erstein TGIF6) and “A romance like any other,” (Turan E1) Brokeback Mountain took movie critics by storm. With its “eternal themes about love and longing that everyone can identify with,” (Meyers ¶ 2) Ang Lee’s film rocked Hollywood. However, in the midst of all the praise and all the excitement about “one of the greatest love stories in film history,” (Williams E1) it seems we have forgotten one very important thing: it is a story of two gay men. And what’s this? Another twist: it’s not just about love. ****** Although queer characters today are generally more “visible” in mainstream media and entertainment, the “framework” in which these characters are portrayed nonetheless places queer sexuality into a heteronormative discourse that strives to placate the heterosexual majority of popular culture. Despite the increased “visibility,” or presence, of homosexuals in shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Will and Grace , the much-needed discussion of homophobia, its destructive repercussions, and the exploration of homosexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation are still absent. Why is this case? Why have we—twenty-first century Americans— failed to acknowledge the legitimacy of homosexuality as a sexual identity, ignored the consequences of our homophobic tendencies, and ultimately excluded these discussions from our primary means of communication, popular media? These are difficult questions and ones I cannot answer. However, in order to add to this discussion, we need to first examine a more specific question: How have the voices of media professionals influenced the popular discourse on the homosexual themes in movies, and in turn, the popular discourse on, and interpretations of, homosexuality in society in general? To focus this question, I look through the specific lens of the film Brokeback Mountain , its subsequent critic reviews and how these reviews “frame,” or shape the film’s messages in a particular manner that, perhaps unintentionally, reinforce stereotypes regarding homosexuality. Through a close examination of the film Brokeback Mountain and the discourse that surrounded it, we can discover how and why these reviews strengthen queer stereotypes that consequently marginalize the gay community and the idea of “queerness” itself, in spite of possible efforts to enfranchise it, and dilute the film’s message of the destructiveness of homophobia. By studying a variety of movie reviews, using Robert Entman’s methodology of framework analysis, and examining the concept of a “paradox of visibility,” all from a queer theorist perspective, I will expose the heteronormalizing effects of such “framing” by media professionals, and their consequential contribution to the propagation of heteroideogical thinking in American society.

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